The rights of nature laws recognize the rights of ecosystems and natural communities to exist, to flourish, to regenerate, and to evolve…nature laws move nature from being considered ‘property’ under the law to being recognized as ‘rights bearing’ under the law.
Existing environmental laws (Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, etc.) treat nature as property, such that the owner of that property effectively has the right to destroy the nature that exists on his property.
Similarly, slaves were treated as property under the law and a slave ‘owner’ had the right to destroy his ‘property.
Our existing structures of environmental law will not allow us to achieve anything close to true sustainability… in its place, we need to drive a fundamentally new legal structure forward.
(Source: ofmyloverthesea)
